Lee was almost too turned on to talk, but he managed a single syllable. “What?”
Mira stepped even closer. Her breasts grazed his chest for a lurid instant, hard nipples briefly making contact through thin cloth, while a hard part of Lee’s own anatomy prodded her back in the stomach. She leaned her head forward, letting her lips hover mere inches from the spot she’d marked on his neck earlier that evening.
“Did it feel good?” she whispered. “Did you enjoy having me… suck… your blood?”
“You’re playing with fire,” he said, jaw clenched.
“Maybe I want to get burned?”
The danger was real. He knew this somewhere far in the back of his mind. It didn’t matter if Tess could block the underlying effects of enthrallment. He could still become addicted to Mira’s bite, a willing vessel of blood essence at her beck and call. If they were playing with fire, it was far more likely that he’d end up being the one who got burned.
He saw Tess moving out of the corner of his eye, slipping past both him and Mira and into the hallway. She flashed a devious, Dennis the Menace-esque smile at him, then began tickling Mira with ethereal fingers. Mira gasped and flinched backward, trying to brush off each cold, prickly touch and scrunching her face up at the lack of an apparent source.
“What… are you doing?” asked Mira.
“Nothing.” Lee took a calming breath, and though he was still visibly aroused, he could at least think again. “Tess, on the other hand, appears to be tickling you.”
Tess giggled and grinned. Mira clutched an arm over her breasts as Tess veered into the murky territory of ghostly sexual harassment, flicking the other woman’s sensitive nipples.
“What are you talking about?” asked Mira. “Who is Tess?”
“She’s my partner in crime,” said Lee. “Apparently she has more sense than I do when it comes to the slack I should give hungry, big-breasted vampires.”
“Tell her to… ah!” Mira screamed and spun around as Tess reached a hand under her nightgown to further her onslaught. “I yield! I’ll stop if she stops.”
“Tess,” said Lee.
“That was easy enough,” said Tess. “My last resort was going to be to possess her if you actually did start to go along with her feeding off you.”
Surprisingly, Mira began laughing as soon as Tess relented. She took another step back from Lee’s doorway, favoring him with a curious smile.
“I do believe I underestimated you, Lee Amaranth. I really shouldn’t have even tried this, to be honest, but your blood was just so… delectable. Strange, it’s always the ones with the best taste that give me the most trouble.”
She turned and started walking away, her hips swaying in a manner that almost made it painful for Lee to stick to his decision. He pulled Tess into his mystic stream with a sigh. She immediately took him by the hand and pulled him back into his room, only taking the time to slam the door shut behind him.
Tess pushed him down on the bed and hooked her fingers underneath the waistband of his sweatpants with just as much roughness. Lee’s cock was still hard from the prolonged teasing he’d endured, and it bounced loose with a back and forth motion that warranted a comical sound effect.
“You did the right thing, Lee,” said Tess. “I’m a firm believer in the idea that doing the right thing should come with a reward.”
“Is that so?” He smirked at her. “So just what will my reward…”
She was apparently more interested in showing him than telling him. Tess took hold of his shaft and gave it a single hard stroke before bringing her lips down on the tip. She swirled them over it, licking with her tongue, like a woman practicing seduction on a lollipop.
Mira had been eager to suck his blood. Tess was just as eager to suck elsewhere. Lee groaned as he stretched out on the bed, watching his sweet little ghost put her hot mouth to a lewd purpose. He ran one hand through her hair. Just one. The fingers of the other were busy digging into the mattress.
“Jesus, Tess,” he moaned.
“Mmmf.” She only could make a muffled noise with his cock still in her mouth. She dropped her lips lower and then lower still. Too low. She pulled back and coughed, a line of sticky fluid still connecting her lips to the tip of his shaft.
Tess made eye contact with him as she started up again, this time licking his full length and planting kisses along it instead of sucking directly. The pleasure was unreal, but just below the point that would push him over the edge. He was sure she knew it, that she’d actively chosen to hover at that level, just below the bursting point. She was competitive, Lee knew, and she wanted to make sure he was aware that Mira wasn’t the only one who could render him stupid with lust.
Lee was competitive too. He took Tess by the shoulders and heaved her onto the bed next to him, eliciting a tiny, lewd squeal. He gave her a deep kiss, pushing his tongue into her mouth, and hurried to align his cock with its target. Tess ran her hand through his hair and then, in a rather cheeky move, let her teeth drag across the same spot Mira had bitten earlier.
He couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d wanted to, or even slowed down. Lee pushed his cock as deep into Tess as it would go and start thrusting at full speed. The bed shook beneath them like the back of an old truck on an unmaintained dirt road. Tess let out tiny moans and squeals that shifted from surprise, to pleasure, to outright need.
“Lee,” she breathed. “Oh, Lee!”
What had he done to deserve her? What has any man done to deserve the woman he loves?
Lee groped her small breasts. He kissed her neck. He caressed her butt. He used that same butt for leverage to thrust into her even harder and faster, savoring her warmth and tightness. She wrapped her legs around him, squeezing his body into hers until there was barely room for him to keep pumping. They started grinding instead, kissing deeply, sticky with sweat and more than just that in some places.
He felt Tess come for him. She squealed, burying her face against his neck, biting again, though on his shoulder this time. He took possession of her, using his strong arms to pull her into each thrust, taking full advantage of the pleasure she had to offer. He could feel his own pleasure building to insane levels, a rocket ship in flight. He squeezed her against him as he unloaded, enjoying the way her small body twitched with each decadent burst.
They fell asleep in each other’s arms, safe in a cocoon of their shared, naked bodies.
CHAPTER 20
Lee and Tess joined the others for breakfast the next morning. Ryoko had prepared a small feast that included fruit salad, hash browns, omelet, bacon, and several different kinds of bagels and muffins.
The food was tasty, but Lee felt a bit awkward at the table after noticing the two nearly pinprick-sized bite marks on Zoe’s neck. They hadn’t been there the previous night, which told him all he needed to know about where Mira had gone after being warded off by Tess. It was hard for him to maintain his appetite while trying not to picture his sister in the embrace of the big-breasted vampire.
“We’re going for a walk,” announced Mira as they finished. “Put your shoes on, Lee. You’re coming along with us.”
“Where to?”
“To talk with an old friend,” said Mira.
He left the mansion alongside Zoe, Mira, Ryoko, and Tess. Zoe ordered Lucas to stay behind, though she didn’t give a practical reason as to why it was necessary. Her ghost obeyed without question, which was a tad unsettling, though not unwelcome.
The sky overhead was clear, and the grass was still thick with dew droplets. Birds sang a melodious chorus of chirps and whistles. They headed down the road, and the view of the town from above made it seem quaint and cozy, if incredibly secluded.
A few people were out and about, some walking aimlessly along the sidewalk, others sitting on porches or tending to small gardens. Their pace slowed as the girls, mostly Zoe and Ryoko, stopped for short snippets of conversation with the locals. Lee was introduced and reintroduced to person after person, many of t
hem pointing out the similarities between his and Zoe’s eyes, or nose, or some other random feature.
It was hard to square away the response of the local populace with Lee’s previous image of the House of Shadows. There wasn’t a single person who seemed to have a fearful or wary reaction to Ryoko, Mira, or Zoe.
They were members of the community, welcome and appreciated. It bothered Lee for some reason, to have such an obvious crack in the assumptions he’d once made paraded in front of him.
He’d assumed they were headed into a nearby residence or business. He only realized that they weren’t when they arrived at their destination. It was on a grassy cliff, overlooking the beach below, a perfect view for the purpose it was there to serve.
It was a cemetery.
Lee walked a few feet back from the others as they made their way over to a medium-sized headstone of polished marble near the far back. The wind had picked up, casting about what remained of the season’s stray leaves. The four of them stood, staring at the burial plot of Katherine White.
He was far less sure of his own reaction than the three women. They approached the grave as though it was a visit they’d made many times before in the past, each of them taking their own, quasi-private turn.
Ryoko went first, kneeling down to clear leaves from around the headstone and brushing dust off the front. Lee could only hear murmurs of what she was whispering, but the pain in her tone of voice was enough to tell him all he needed to know.
“She was killed by a member of your Order,” said Mira, quietly answering his unasked question.
“I wouldn’t call it my Order,” he said.
“It makes no difference. Katherine White, Katie, as she was known to most of us, died fighting for what she believed in.”
The wind blew again, picking up strength and flirting with the idea of pushing Lee off his feet.
“How did she die?”
Mira gave him a sad, faraway smile. “Bravely. She was trying to help a family of rogue mages, a mother and father with two young sorcerers on their hands. It’s a much simpler matter for adults to evade the Order than for children to do the same.
“A powerful Arcane Striker by the name of Genevieve Laughton was the one who killed her. She went on to become the second-in-command of the Order, the Vice Magister, in case you weren’t aware. She was sent with a group of mages to capture the family and question the parents. Questioning that would end with their indefinite imprisonment, if not their death.”
“The kids?”
“Had the Order got hold of them, they’d have been raised in foster homes, placed among Chaldean true believers. To someone viewing the act of not submitting to the Order’s authority upon discovering latent magical talent as a crime, the outcome must seem fair and reasonable.”
“Katie tried to help them flee?”
Mira’s smile widened. “She didn’t just try. She stayed back while they ran, challenged Genevieve to a duel in single combat. She was always headstrong like that. We only heard what the family told us about the fight as they fled, but… I know she put up a good fight.”
Mira sniffed. It was a strange thing, to watch as her red eyes misted up. Zoe was standing up from the grave, having placed several flowers down against it. Her eyes were even worse when she turned around, raw around the edges, with tear streaks smudging her makeup.
Zoe came over to Lee, standing next to him and doing what she could to recompose herself. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her phone. Wordlessly, she brought up a photo of herself and another young woman that Lee didn’t need to recognize to know.
Katie and Zoe had been at the beach, arms around each other’s shoulders as they snapped a selfie in their bikinis. Katie was grinning for the camera, happy in that confident, cheeky sort of way that made him wonder what sorts of fun they’d had afterward.
She’d been a pretty, freckled brunette, with deep green eyes and pale skin. She’d just been a girl, so much like his sister or Tess or Eliza that if not for how attractive she was, he would have likely never noticed her on the street.
“Katie’s the one who helped me when I first left Primhaven,” whispered Zoe. “She’s the only reason I joined up with this cause to begin with, really. It wasn’t like I committed myself to some shadowy, dark organization. I just… made a friend. A close friend. Someone like me, with stories about experimenting with magic and fighting monsters and relationship drama.”
“The two of you look so happy in this picture,” said Lee.
“Yeah.” Zoe wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “It’s hard to explain how much was lost when she died. She was kind and caring, but also bossy and confident. She swore constantly, like it was nothing to her. She was just so… I’m sorry, I know it’s hard to mourn someone you never knew.”
“Not as hard as you’d think.”
He looked at the picture again and wondered when he’d last seen his sister smile like that. He could see it now. Katie’s loss hung over the group like a leaden weight. He could sense it in Ryoko’s posture, and Zoe’s absolute resolve in what she and the others were doing. He thought he could even hear it when he thought of Jack’s voice, determination tempered and forged in pain.
They eventually headed back to the mansion, and morning passed into afternoon. Ryoko cooked an early dinner, chicken with salad along with rice mixed with carrots and peas. The mood was still somber, though the women seemed to be making an effort to keep the conversation active and light.
Ryoko brought out several bottles of wine, and it almost felt like they were racing to see who could get sufficiently drunk first. It was that style of drinking that reinforced Lee’s earlier insight. It wasn’t drinking to forget, it was drinking to numb an old, persistent pain. Drinking because it was all they could do, and it was more acceptable than crying.
They drifted off from the dinner table as they finished, each tending to their own business rather than spending the rest of the night together. Lee spent some time sitting and conversing with Tess in the lounge before starting to wander the mansion on his own. It was clear that he’d either earned enough trust or sufficiently diminished his threat level to be allowed to go where he pleased.
He found Ryoko outside, sitting against one of the cherry trees, her pale face illuminated by the dazzling light of the stars and nearly full moon. Lee wasn’t sure if she was in a conversational sort of mood, but Tess squeezed his hand, urging him forward.
“Hi,” he said, coming to sit against the tree beside her. “Care for some company?”
Ryoko smiled. “I’d like that.”
She had a bottle of wine with her, and after taking a long sip from it, she offered it to him. It was already half empty and the label was different from the ones they’d been drinking at dinner.
“Katie’s death changed all of us,” she said. “It’s always like this on days when we really focus on her loss. I think Mr. Masterson thought it necessary to help you understand why we do what we do, where it all comes from.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He felt stupid apologizing for something that so obviously wasn’t his fault, but he really was sorry, for their pain, for their loss.
“We all took a different meaning from it, I think,” said Ryoko. “Jack wants vengeance. Zoe wants to help people like Katie did. Mira has mellowed out, even.”
“This is her mellowed out?”
Ryoko giggled. “Oh, you have no idea.”
Lee took another sip of the wine and passed it back to her. “What about you? What meaning did you take from Katie’s death?”
“To be honest, it’s hard for me to put into words. I never needed meaning earlier in my life. I was content to do my job here at the mansion and find happiness where I could. It changed when I met Jack and especially after…” She swallowed, hesitating. “After I became a water nymph. I think what I want to believe now is just that people shouldn’t die for doing the right thing.”
“That’s admirable,” said Lee. “T
hough a bit vague. It doesn’t necessarily condemn those on the enemy’s side, if they believe and act in a way that they consider to be right.”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Ryoko. “I think you’re an idealist, Mr. Amaranth. I like that about you. But I trust Jack, and I trust my friends. I truly do believe that we’re on the right path.”
He could tell from her voice that she really did, and for whatever reason, that knowledge broke his heart.
CHAPTER 21
Lee stayed in bed after he woke up the next morning. It was one of the rare times when he managed to wake up before Tess, and as gently as he could, he pulled her into his mystic stream where she lay next to him.
He stared at her pretty face and ruffled brown hair, watching her chest rise and fall as she took breaths that she technically didn’t need to take. Was the fact that she was already dead a blessing?
It made it far less likely that he’d lose her in the way Jack and the others at the mansion had lost Katie, given how few opponents could attack or even see her. She wouldn’t die of old age. She wouldn’t even age, perfectly preserved as a teenager for now and forever.
He had almost lost her, though, during his fight against the lich, Yllex. There was still a crack in his heart from that entire experience, old worries and pains that he could still feel if he focused on them, waiting to flare up again at twice the intensity. Lee reached out and pulled her into a hug.
“Mmm,” sighed Tess. “Five more minutes. Or six.”
“Or seven?”
She blinked her eyes open and smiled at him. “Hey. You woke up before me.”
“Yeah, you were snoring like a train engine.”
“Liar. Proper ladies don’t snore.”
Lee kissed her and pulled her head against his chest. He didn’t like the direction his thoughts were heading in.
They eventually climbed out of bed and got dressed. It was earlier than Lee had realized, and he was surprised to find that Zoe, Ryoko, Mira, and Lucas were already awake and in the midst of a discussion in the lounge.
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